Girl on girl hate has become a ubiquitous theme in romantic comedies, novels, television shows and nearly anything catering to the pre-teen, thus creating a never ending cycle of vicious gossip, bullying and tormenting. Modern romance fights that tide.
As an author, I think it’s important to read books that aren’t perfect so we can perform more effectively in our own stories. That said, there are a few things that will make me put a book down.
I cannot say I’ve ever read a romance novel where the heroine sat around twiddling her thumbs waiting for a two-dimensional character with no name, (looking you, Prince Charming... ) to give her a new life.
If romance makes the changes that should have been made centuries ago, if romance opens its publishing houses and agencies and offers the same opportunity to authors of color as it does to white authors right now, we take away the excuse that it won’t work.
If there was ever a truth I struggled with, it was this. Being busy doesn’t necessarily mean being productive.
Why aren’t these books marketed as romance novels and why do so many stories have love-story plots or subplots but scoff at the ones that do so intentionally?
When I write strong female characters, I think of it more with the emphasis on strong character, creating heroines and female main characters that are strongly written, fleshed out and three dimensional. The character isn’t strong, necessarily, because of her physical abilities or emotional capacity. She is strong because the characterization is strong and complete.
Over the course of my evolving love for the romance genre, and my need to read more to write more, I have discovered many genres that I would never have known I loved, had it not been by chance or happy accident. Here are just a few:
When I tell people I write romance novels, I get myriad responses. By far, the ones I find most offensive are those people who ask, Do you ever want to write real books? Yeah. I do want to write real books. That’s why I write romance novels.
Romance is for the women of the world who don’t get to hear their stories told nearly enough. It’s for all people whose stories are silenced, it’s a beacon of hope and optimism when things seem really, really bad.
